I guess the genesis of the hedge fund came, I forget, late 70s or so, this firm bought this productive firm after their stock price fell low enough to take control. They saddled them up with debt, sold off the productive bits, stole the pension, then declared bankruptcy, the company and it's workers were ruined, them walking off with a mint.

It has been celebrated since then disturbingly, as if it's an acceptable business practice.

[–] non_burglar@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

I'm not talking about the hedge fund, but restructuring CBC funding, very quietly de-clawing the crtc, and the repealing of anticompetitive and anti-concentration rules put in place in the early 1990s during the Chretien years.

This undid the balancing of news reporting accomplished as a result of the Kent report, opened up foreign ownership of newspapers and local radio stations, and basically ended the Canadian Press, an analogue of the Associated Press.

If you are old enough to remember the flood of new print titles of magazines and cheap paperbacks from about 1992 to 2005, that was the actual end of Canadian newspapers.

It was decried by a number vocal objectors, but no one cared, because communism was now dead and we were all going to become rich.

[–] teyrnon@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 hours ago

Hedge funds should be banned. At the least they should be pariahs, not allowed in polite society, with everyone waiting to take a shot at them, seeing as they are all parasites.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 hours ago

Well we want to privatize our airports who do you think is going to "own" them.

[–] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 hours ago

It would be so much cleaner if all the media were owned by the government. /s

[–] 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Although i agree with banning foreign ownership, it doesnt really solve the real problem which is media being the mouthpiece for billionaires.

Regular folk clearly dont want to pay for journalism, and thats how we ended up with billionaires owning all the news outlets.

We ban the foreign billionaires and then what? Canadian billionaire owned news? The lesser of two evils i guess.

Ask new brunswick how it went with the irvings owning all the news in the province.

[–] teyrnon@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

People didn't pay for news before the super rich controlled the media as such, this is a new phenomena, that is not due "people not paying for news."

If news was all pay news, it would create other intractable problems, like the masses having ONLY people playing them telling them what is going on, following cynical snakes, is that what you want?

[–] 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

People didn't pay for news before the super rich controlled the media

where did people get all this free news from before? Internet blogs dont count as news...

Reputable news outlet revenue was always a mix of subscription and ads... i'm talking physical newspapets here... then with the internet, people stopped paying those subscriptions and news was funded by just ads, which wasnt sustainable.... so now we have ads and billionaires funding the news.

i'm not sure what you mean "this is a new phenomena"... journalism has always cost money. It was never free/gratis.

If news was all pay news, it would create other intractable problems

Sure, i agree. I didnt say subscription was the best revenue model. You also have the guardian's non-profit, or publicly funded media. But those have problems and biases too.

But surely all those models are better than what we have now

[–] teyrnon@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago

It's damned if you do damned if you don't at this point with tech sucking up all the ad revenue that is for sure.

Even before that though, the media has been consolidating, around 2001 there were like 10 companies that owned about every major outlet and network, and it's just gotten worse, and the internet wasn't sucking up all the ad revenue back then. That is the cause of a lot of this, obviously a large factor is tech being allowed to lawlessly lord over the internet and get their grasping hands on all that ad revenue while cheating everyone else downstream.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 36 points 1 day ago

Only American?

Seems like any foreign interest in a nation's media sources would be an issue.

[–] bedwyr@piefed.ca 25 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You see, you're wrong here, for the sake of democracy, and everything that is good and right, hedge funds should be prevented from existing. They are parasites.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 day ago

I mean if we're going to be ambitious, we should ban private capital altogether.

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If it were an AM station its ownership structure would have been more scrutinized by the CRTC. But a newspaper conglomerate? Meh.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

That's how it is globally.

Regulating the ise of the public airwaves is a different thing than regulating people who own a printing press

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 2 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

That is just not true. France caps non-EU ownership at 20%. Cyprus at 50%. Korea caps foreign ownership at 30%. Australian law gives the government the power to regulate the entire media sector as a "proscribed sensitive sector" when it comes to foreign ownership. Japan has a very similar system, but more restrictive. The UK restricts foreign ownership when foreign state interests are at play.

So, no, it's not how it is globally. There is nothing that says Canada could not adopt a more restrictive system. And given the American threats, I think it absolutely should.

[–] GodofLies@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 day ago

Just banned from owning Canadian newspapers? What kind of shortsighted headline is that. Canada has been consistently sold off and facilities shut down over time. And this all happened with the stamp of approval from our federal governments (both Liberal and Conservative).

Look at our natural resources sector for example. We ship raw materials out (lumber, oil, minerals) for cheap and it is sold back to us at a premium. We need to keep these resources here so that people here can turn them into goods that is sold at a higher premium. This elevates our wages and allows our government to collect more taxes which in turn improves public services. Alas, our politicians are not only bought and paid for, but love to stick to their neoliberal ideology. It's all short term gains.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 day ago

You had me at banned from owning Canadian.